575h
of life the average EU user spends on cookie banners
Calculated across a typical 60-year browsing lifetime, the average EU internet user spends around 575 hours interacting with cookie consent banners.
Context
That assumes ~3 banners a day at ~20 seconds each. Real numbers vary, but the headline shows how a tool intended to protect users became a daily friction tax.
Methodology
3 banners/day × 20 seconds × 365 × 60 years.
Key takeaways
- Consent UX is one of the biggest hidden time-sinks of the modern web.
- Auto-rejecting banners removes the time tax without weakening privacy.
Sources
- ENISA cookie consent study (2023)
Cite this statistic
NovaBlock (2026). "575h — of life the average EU user spends on cookie banners." Retrieved from https://novablock.app/statistics/cookie-banner-time-cost